


Anne versus The Medievalists

by BlackbirdWrites



Category: Gentleman Jack (TV)
Genre: #angst, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, How to Stop the Bleeding, POV Lesbian Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2020-07-12 12:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19946122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackbirdWrites/pseuds/BlackbirdWrites
Summary: On the way to horsewhip the Rev. Ainsworth, Anne is brutally attacked by Rawson's thug. Bloodied and badly hurt, she continues on her mission of vengeance.  Stopping Ainsworth's carriage on the Leeds Road she puts the leather to the scoundrel.  The next morning, two things are burning in Anne Lister's mind: Get even with Rawson and get back with Miss Walker.Please enjoy,Blackbird





	1. Anne Versus The Medievalists

**”Anne versus The Medievalists”**

It's early morning, and the sun streams through my bedroom windows, and I wonder if all people who have eastern-facing windows are early risers? They'd have to be, wouldn't they? The kind who bounce up out of bed at first light ready for anything.

Ordinarily, that is me, but today, only one of my eyes makes it all the way open. I lean in closer to the mirror and carefully prise open my left lid. Through the lightning-like pattern of a bloodshot hemorrhage, my eye looks back with a singular message: Get even.

Downstairs, beginning with my family at breakfast, I'll tell them plausible lies and dismiss their prying —this time to explain away my brutalized face. However, I'm likely to be interrupted from further deception by the inevitable arrival of a note from Miss Walker, probably appearing around nine, inquiring about the Rev. Ainsworth's departure, and did I, perhaps, know anything about it?

Should I tell her yes after deceiving her about so many things? Would she like to know how many former lovers I have from here to Spain? Or perhaps, she'd rather hear how many women before her I've asked to marry me? Should I tell her that toying with me —like she's been doing in this hellish back and forth —has eaten away at my heart whole because only a broken aching thing would satisfy its ghoulish appetites?

Should I tell her how insane it makes me that my love life resembles a battlefield because I'm at war with surrender? I cannot lose another woman I love to yet, another man. So, yes! For the love of God, yes! I horsewhipped him because he forced himself upon her, and it was mine and mine alone to do it. Might she say thank you for protecting her from such filth? Might any of her idiotic relations?

Is there any way back with Ann or have I failed to catch her? I stifle a cry of pain while removing my dressing gown to splash water on my face. I know the minds of the medievalists in Miss Walker's family —they are jealous of me. I should have seen it before now.

For miles and miles in any direction, I'm the only one in this valley having sex. Miss Walker, of course, is also having sex, and until very recently, I could walk over there, and twenty-five minutes later, she'd be on my lap for the afternoon. However, that seems in grave jeopardy now that the medievalists are controlling her mind with the fear of hangman's ropes.

What to do about them? My possible in-laws. Hmm.

I hear Cordingly's voice after her three quick raps at my bedroom door. "Ma'am?" She asks.

"Come in, Cordingly. I'd much rather you today than Eugenie."

"Thank you, ma'am. May I get you anything before we start dressing you?"

"You'll keep this between us. No one else." When she nods her head, I reveal the long spread of black and blue bruises down my ribs and how impossible it would be for me to wear a corset today.

She sneaks a glance or two at my face. “Out of your eye, ma'am, can you see very much today?”

"Well enough to not fall off any more walls." I reiterate my cover story.

"Very good, ma'am," Cordingly says as she gently smoothes an ointment over my bruises and wraps soft cotton around my torso.

This is not the first secret kept between us. Cordingly was my lady's maid on my sojourn to Paris when I first met Mrs. Barlow and soon began courting her. How I convinced Maria Barlow of my virginity --and seem to have convinced Ann Walker of the same --is curious to me that each woman suspected me of any such innocence. Do I appear chaste? The very thought frightens me.

Once I let it slip in front of Mrs. Barlow while reading a letter back from my Aunt Anne, that I had a venereal disease and was in Paris searching for doctors and seeking a cure. This did not seem to shock Mrs. Barlow after she'd known me for several months. And in no time she had given me the name of a medical specialist, whose heavy metal "cures" of mercury sulfates nearly killed me. Dying, diseased, or not, and without fail, I held up my end for many hours whenever she stayed with me for the night. Now that it appears I have all kinds of not-having-a-relationship time on my hands, I should re-read my Paris diary during my time spent there.

There were three kind things Maria Barlow did for me. All have been long-lasting, but the one that set me on my much-needed life track adjustment was when I finally asked her, a woman with great style, to help me shop for a different look. I needed couture Parisian black attire and fast. The urgency of this fell upon the scheme between me and a Resistance spy about the beheading of the former Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, and a beautiful ballet dancer I had a crush on.

By this point in my sojourn to Paris, Mrs. Barlow had taken to calling me 'her beau' and had described me to myself, as having a handsome, gentlemanly manner about me. If a woman was going to speak to me like that while kissing me in a dark passageway, I figured I could trust her with my efforts to improve my appearance.

Naturally, she was an excellent guide as we went here and there to shops of her friends in search of all-black Parisian couture. I was confident I wasn't making this change because Mariana had described me as looking shabby before giving me a venereal infection, I think as a way of controlling me sexually, but that is a whole other story.

Even Mrs. Barlow had said my cuffs were a bit frayed, but with her, I did not take offense as I did with Mariana, and it was because of the way Mrs. Barlow had said it to me. Gently and kind.

We started my transition slowly. We began with scarfs — chocolate-brown ones, midnight blue ones, and, of course, black ones. We shared a kiss while Maria tied and untied silk from around my neck, and the owner was discreetly absent. I was enthralled with all her attention.

Looking in a mirror, I matched jeweled stick pins with my new scarfs whilst Maria stood behind me, resting her chin on my shoulder. "May I make one more suggestion?" She'd asked.

"Hmmm," I replied, feeling her hand on my waist, and then it sliding down to caress my thighs and her pressing her body and breasts against my back. Unless I ask, usually, I would not say I like touching, but this was happening in public, fast, and it aroused me terribly. Of course, I said, "Please ask."

"Perhaps you've noticed that no one in Paris has one long eyebrow. Let people see that you have two."

I'd looked into the mirror, and it did appear that I had one long eyebrow, unlike everyone else who had two, It would make me look more reasonable. I was willing to do it.

Before I'd left Paris for England with fine new clothes, two eyebrows and a lingering lover's crush on Mrs. Barlow, she and I had agreed to marry in two years if we were still single and cared for each other as life partners. Looking back, I think much of what went on between us was an intense mind game that played out on the streets of Paris, in the salon at Place Vendôme, and finally, when we moved in together, at the Voltaire. By then, it was night after night of passion. Maria Barlow was an older, very ladylike widow, and I was in my mid-thirties. In Paris, in 1825, I had the best sex of my life.

"Cordingly," I ask, looking away from the mirror, having decided that before breakfast is the time to break my nose back into form. "Can you get me several rolls of cotton? You know the kind you use for a nosebleed. Something to stick right up your nostrils," I say while making a shoving motion that unnerves her and she flinches at my idea and hurries from my bedroom.

Once I'm alone, I put the spine of a volume of poetry against the right side of my nose and pick up a heavy tortoiseshell hairbrush to smack the left side back into place.

This method I do not recommend trying at home, but when the bleeding had finally stopped, and I no longer saw double, Cordingly managed enough tape and cotton that I felt I wouldn't bleed freely on myself, for at least part of the day.

If I keep telling myself it's only a bad headache, and surely by tomorrow I'll be a nose-breather again, I think I can make it down the hill to where Pickles and his crew are building something for me.

As predicted, everyone in my family acts strangely around me during breakfast, when a note from Miss Walker arrived inquiring if I had any first-hand news about what happened to Mr. Ainsworth on his way out of town. If so, she was summoning my presence, at my earliest convenience, to discuss the matter.

The head of steam I've gotten under me —solely fueled by broken-nose pain —may be short-lived. I incline to check in on Pickles building my stacking stone walls. Each piece chiseled out of the quarries at Shibden.

I find the wall under construction after a ten-minute walk. Now that I've examined them, how nicely the stone pieces are balanced and fitted together, I'm certain of it. Still standing a thousand years from now will be my ornamental wall that meanders alongside the boundaries of an ancient Roman road I discovered on one of Shibden's hillsides.

It's going to be beautiful.

After congratulating Pickles and his men on what an excellent job they're doing, I flip open my pocket watch and see that it's half-past ten.

I can't put off seeing Miss Walker any longer.

Twenty minutes later —

Crow's Nest

"I've gotten a note," I say to James while draping my coat over his arm and handing him my hat and gloves. "Where is she?"

Once I'm inside the library, I see Miss Walker looking out the French doors at Miss Parkhill, off in the garden painting a watercolor of a marble statue and its surrounding hedge. My relief at catching Miss Walker alone is immeasurable.

Ann takes one look at my bruised eye and swollen nose and gasps. "I didn't imagine for one second that Mr. Ainsworth would fight back. Are you all right?"

I let out such a sigh of relief that I levitate slightly off the floor and forward into her arms. "This? No, not him."

"Who then?" She asks a bit shaken.

"Ann, I don't believe you'd know him. He's not the sort you would know."

"But you would?"

Nervously, I pull at my collar. "For two minutes, I knew him. It was business."

She kisses me lightly, mindful of my busted lip. "What kind of business? Anne, you do look hurt."

I take both her wrists and pull her to me tighter. With enthusiasm, I say, "Let's ride over to Shibden and have a look at something I'm building. We could take your carriage and be there and back in no time. What'd you say? Lovely day and all?"

"I like the idea of stopping off at the Moss House," she says while ringing the bell to rouse James and send word to the groom. "And now that you've mentioned carriages," she turns to me for my answer, "I'd like the truth from you, Anne."

Despite the pain it causes me, I beat my fist against my chest. "Do you not understand why physically I had to do it?"

"Anne, why couldn't you just let him leave?"

"Because you are mine to protect, and he molested you."

Still holding the servant's bell, she collapses onto the couch. When I approach her, she begins to cry.

"I've never had anyone like you in my life. Can you understand? My family, they think they're helping, but they're not."

I drop down on the cushion next to her and catch her tears as they fall. "Ann, you mustn't listen to them. They're medievalists who don't understand anything about love and passion, and because of it, they stay miserable all their lives. I'm always going to be here for you and put your best interests first and love you always."

"Why?" She asks, continuing to cry. "Why would you stay when I've treated you so terribly?"

And before I could stop her, she leaves the couch and nervously paces on the other side of the room.

The distance between us feels dangerous. The floor a trap of quicksand. How to stop it? How to stop it!

I leap up from the couch and quite literally shout across the room at her, "Ann! Can you not see I'd do anything for you?"

At that instant, James appears in the doorway. "Ma'am, is everything all right?"

Ignoring James, I continue to shout, "That is why I had to horsewhip the Reverand Ainsworth! To protect you." I look up to gauge her reaction and see the butler instead of Ann staring at me with a worried look on his face.

Then I taste it. The blood in my mouth. I press my handkerchief to my nose, and immediately it turns red.

Ann turns to James. "Two things before you go. Miss Lister will need some bandages, very quickly, and the cook should make a lunch basket. Thank you, James." Then she turns to me, "Should I send for Dr. Kenny?"

While pressing my handkerchief harder against my broken nose, I study myself in the mirror while waving her suggestion away, "I can very well care for myself, without that quack fluttering over me."

"Why do you dislike him so?" She asks as James shuts the door behind him.

"Ann? If I'd been allowed, what kind of a doctor do you think I would have been? Better than him, surely."

She appears in the mirror's reflection behind me and turns me around to look at her. "Probably a very good one," she says, stroking my cheek, "with a gentle, loving bedside manner."

Amazed by whatever miracle is happening, I kiss her as hard as I can without bleeding.


	2. Might I Tell the Truth?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Through an amusing and sardonic POV, Anne Lister reflects on her troubled romantic past with a renewed focus to convince Miss Walker to become her wife. 
> 
> Excerpt:
> 
> Miss Walker knows nothing of my self-punishing penchant for serialized dramatic torture. But that is not me anymore. I'm ready for a tremendous life pivot: marriage. 
> 
> I just need her 'yes.'
> 
> A second note: I've discovered two "Gentleman Jack" writers I enjoy, Alisterscravat and iwasjustpassing, and I'd like to recommend them to you.

# Might I Tell the Truth?

After Miss Walker had crossed the library and seen me up-close, she had cried out, "Are you all right?"

By a long shot, it was apparent that I wasn't, but instead of shrugging off the beating that had happened to me, I stopped myself from lying to her yet, again. With Miss Walker, my marriage hunting ground has narrowed, and in this new territory, I find I have enemies from poison pen writers to strong-armed thugs, and it's because of this collection of foes, who seem to have grown up out of the earth like mushrooms do overnight, I'm not always landing on my feet these days, and that's troubling me.

As I try to manage the situation, meaning: how much truth to tell Miss Walker about how I came to look as frightfully as I do, I have a flash of self-awareness. Not always a good thing for a deceitful person to have. I tell myself daily that I lie to everyone because they do not, in their heart of hearts, really want to know the truth. It's as if English society has deemed truth-telling impolite, and I am along for the cover-up.

I'm just passing.

Or am I?

I feel the danger of this every time I read my journals and revisit my lovelorn past.

Four years ago, in Paris was the last time I saw Maria Barlow, with whom I had enjoyed the pleasurable tensions of a dalliance while completely denying that my plan all along had been her eventual seduction. That I am a liar, and a very good one is true. I obfuscate because I must hide until the right moment when all signs point the way. I am always ready.

My memory holds hundreds of heart-twisting love poems, or I could try as I did with Miss Walker, to plant an erotic idea as a possibility. What would happen to her if she went into one of those places? Where people masturbate in secrecy through holes in their pockets? And once there, who knows what might happen to her? Was such a wicked place strangely appealing? It was to me.

Each and every one of my romantic pursuits have a cunning artfulness to them, and I will say anything to an attractive lady, once she shows me promise. What is false is the image of me beguiling a gentlewoman without mercy for her morals. Stop means stop, but not necessarily full stop. There are always second chances. So it's tricky.

During Mrs. Barlow's and my last encounter, it had become clear to me that my feverish dreams of us one day 'going to Italy' were another dead end along the road of my endless capacity for self-delusion. Also, Mariana had lured me back. Said I to myself at the time, "With her, it's madness to do this again." However, my inner warnings heed no consequence because within days I had picked up where we had last left off, and I'd dropped right back into our long-running game of 'promises never kept.'

Once more, I lived amongst the damned.

In December of 1831, Mariana's customary 'Happy Christmas' letter had come to me in Hastings, but she'd buried the lede: Charles's health, on the decline since November, was rapidly becoming worse. She'd hinted at soon becoming a widow and had let me know she was suspicious and quite displeased about the length of time I was spending with Miss Hobart in Hastings.

Here, along the coast, my friendship with Vere had become much more promising. Returning from a late-night stroll along the boardwalk, I'd opened the door to the music room, as a shortcut to the stairs leading up to my bed, where to my surprise, I'd found Vere sitting alone in the dark. Her hands on the keys of the piano -- not playing but sadly weeping.

When she heard me come in and cross the floor, she made no move to hide her emotions from me so, I slid next to her on the piano bench and reached up and touched a falling tear. It was then; she'd leaned against me, welcoming my arms around her while more tears fell. I'd whispered to her a confession of my own (which was false) that I too had sat alone in the dark after failing to fend off loneliness.

"What could I do for her?" I'd asked. "Anything at all?"

I'd held her for a few minutes more until her crying had stopped. Never heard what the matter was, I'd said goodnight and continued upstairs to my room, thinking as I went: there had been a moment between us, and that was a start.

Five days had come and gone after Christmas of 1831, and during each one of them, I had failed to keep Mariana's letter out of my mind. My anticipation of the upcoming new year of 1832, that I'd imagined filled with invigorating fresh starts, had each dream replaced by my darker expectations of Charles's impending death. At long last, there would be Charles's funeral, which I'd imagined as an overdone affair of wintery flowers and even rarer mourning.

I certainly wouldn't.

Next came Mariana's new year's letter describing a grim Christmas, where Charles's high fevers and accompanying medicinal purges had done little to quell his vulgar and insulting manner, but he was now in robust health, once again.

God, help me! I am nothing if not an emotional puppet to this damnable thing!

Being enslaved was never my envisioned trajectoria of our once-daring romance. Mariana is the woman I've waited for the longest. Twenty years of waiting, month after month, and those were the years --I remind myself --when I had thought things were good.

They have devolved terribly since then, including my feelings of 'damn her' for giving me a venereal disease, which she surely did to control me sexually. In my thirties, I might add, when I was hungrier than ever before.

I would never to her face say, unlike the unwanted criticisms she freely heaps upon me, that her decades spent with Charles at Cheshire have made her a much less attractive person. Once, we'd had a great curiosity for each other. It's where we used to meet, engage, and stay up until dawn lovemaking to discover more.

She ruined it.  
He ruined it.  
I ruined it.

It's over.

But now, after Mariana, after Vere in Hastings, I'm on the other side of England where Miss Walker has stirred me up.

Successfully, ridding her of Mr. Ainsworth's pathetic rigamarole has recharged me, but things are not perfect between us, as much as I would like them to be. So I worry about her bouts of melancholia and her problems with making decisions. Moreover, who is this new medical man, Mr. Sunderland? He's suddenly appeared and oddly advising her never to walk. A quack for sure and someone Miss Parkhill has brought in, all in an effort --I'm convinced --to undermine my authority over Miss Walker.

I cannot leave Crow's Nest for five minutes without something going awry in my absence.

Never mind! It's why, whenever I leave, I gather thirty of my men, and we plant hundreds of trees, build two roads, and very soon a bridge. I will tell Miss Walker during our outing today, that if she can have me on top of her for hours, then weak her spine is undoubtedly not, and that she will take a walk with me tomorrow.

Our carriage pulls up outside, and through the library door comes Miss Walker wearing a different dress and light blue hat with an impressively arching silver feather. She's smiling and calm and happy, and quite ready for our excursion. I hold her hand as she steps up into the carriage. To the driver, I say, "Take us to Shibden by the Lightcliffe Road and then south at the turn by the river."

So just like that, a whip cracks, and we are off.

"Did you know," she asks, "I used to ride in every fox hunt held in West Yorkshire?"

"Really?" I reply, trying to picture it.

"It's true. There was never a weekend when I wasn't jumping fences and racing after the hounds."

As a way of getting her out of doors and restoring her vitality, riding horses sounded very promising, as long as I wasn't supposed to do it. I parried, "In your stable, do you own the breed of horse needed for foxhunting?"

She said, "I've meant to ask. When you're unsure of yourself, you blink very fast. Have you noticed?"

I had noticed, of course. "No, I don't," I say dismissively with an eye roll, "that's ridiculous."

"No, it's not," Miss Walker insists, "it's something you do, and I rather like it in you. Makes you seem more humble, relatable."

"Hu, humble?" I stammer while trying very hard not to blink.

Miss Walker finding my answer quite amusing, begins to laugh.

I stare her down and persist. "Humble? I don't see it."

"Well, you couldn't, could you?"

"Are we arguing?" I ask as the carriage dips across a bump in the road, jostling us closer together.

"Will you admit to blinking when you're unsure and trying to make your mind up about something?"

"Depends. What does a forced confession get me?"

"If you tell the truth, something I know you'll like -- later."

"Hmm," I answer pensively before leaning in for a kiss. But just before I touch her lips with mine, Miss Walker's eyes grow wide with shock.

"What?" I spin around to look behind me. "What's happened?"

"Right here! Is where our carriage crashed, and the boy lost his leg."

Immediately, I knock on the roof with two sharp raps, and the carriage driver slows to a stop. I fling open the door, smacking it into the footman as I jump out.

Obsessed with questioning everyone who was there that day, I'd never come to the scene of the crime. Perhaps, I'll find evidence to advance my theory: that what happened here was not caused by 'someone' who lives far away and 'is just as likely' never to be found.

Not if I have anything to say about it.

As I walk to inspect a nearly six-foot-long scrape on the bridge's southern parapet, I hear behind me a series of noisy objections coming from inside the carriage. Turning around, it would appear that an impressively arched feather, bobbing in the carriage doorway, is the cause of all the fussing. Then Miss Walker's head, and more of her feathered hat, pops into view. Displeasure with me written all over her face.

"It would be kind of you to act," she lowers her voice and speaks the rest to me in a whispered-tone, "more like the gentlemanly beau you assert yourself to be when we're alone together."

I quickly clasp her hand with mine and help her down from her carriage and onto the roadway. I bend slightly at my waist and tip my hat to her. "A thousand apologies, Miss Walker, I gave no thought that you might wish to muddy-up your silken slippers and follow me down a bridge."

"Well, I do, and it was thoughtless of you to leave me in there alone."

By now, I'm yards ahead, thrashing the brushes with my walking stick to see the ground underneath.

"Any clue what you're hoping to find?" Her next thought ends with a rather hopeless prediction. "It was more than a month ago, wasn't it?"

Hiding most of my irritation, I answer, "You could help me by looking on the opposite side and calling to me if you spot anything that's not a bush."

Minutes pass, and I slow my pace as I walk down a small dirt road that branches off the main. Faint wheel tracks and hoof prints are all I have to follow, and I'm starting to think there's no point to my looking high and low for evidence of the gig when Miss Walker's wails cause me to abandon my hunt for clues and rush to where she's standing. With a handkerchief covering her mouth, she points down at a skeleton with patches of fur still stuck to its bones.

I look behind me to see how close the footman and driver are, and if they can see us at all. I take her trembling hands in mine and whisper between kisses to her forehead, "Ann, Ann, it's all right. That was once a small deer, and it wouldn't have hurt you when it was alive so, don't let it worry you now."

Leading her away from the bones by the roadside, my one good eye catches a glinting of metal caught by the sunlight. I grab her hand in mine, and together we dash across the road toward the glister. Crouching down, where the end of the bridge meets the gravel roadway, I brush away the leaves to reveal a bent metal crest of golden falcons against a field of blood-red. Their outstretched talons show their aerial battle on the wing.

There's anger in Miss Walker's voice as she reacts. "That madman! It must've been torn from his gig when he caused our accident."

"Very likely," I answer as I flip the crest over, looking for any identifying markings. Where it may have come from and who might've lost it.

"How is the boy getting on?"

"Henry," I answer, slipping the falcon crest into my pocket. "When I dropped by for visit, I may have brought him out of his shell a little."

Miss Walker answers with a suspicious sigh. "It's possible that even your enemies can't deny how charming you are."

"Kind of you to say, Miss Walker, but has it worked on you?"

She smiles and brushes my cheek with hers, whispering, "Periodically, throughout the day, I fall for it in one way or another."

"One would think charm would be a strong prophylactic against making enemies, but apparently not," I add while helping her up into the carriage.

"Very apparently," she says, settling across from me.

"Are you taking a swipe at me, again?"

Miss Walker shakes her head in disbelief, as the carriage driver calls his team forward with a giddy-up. "Never again can you lecture me on paranoia."

##  # # #

An hour later, with the sky turning a menacing dark grey and looking like it could pour down buckets of rain at any second, I ask Miss Walker, "Should we circumvent our tour of my tree planting and pathways projects and make haste for the chaumiére?"

"Oh, finally! We can have our picnic," she agrees as the carriage rolls past Pickels and his men replanting hundreds of thorn trees, hazels, and laurels.

What I'd like to tell her is why I have Pickels and his men stubbing three hundred trees and replanting them to block and obliterate the scores of illegal footpaths passersby have trampled across Shibden's boundaries. Securing my perimeters is a calculated first step in the process of bringing home a wife to live with me. Once done, we will need privacy and protection, and I have many plans in preparation to accomplish just that.

Weeks ago, I had settled the matter with myself and had acknowledged my obsession to change Shibden from 'looking like an old farm,' which sets my nerves on edge at the very thought of it appearing as such, but still had wondered: when had this particular idée fixe taken over? Could it be traced back to my walk home one morning, when I realized, after staying all night and making love to her until the wee hours of the morning, that in more than one, two, and three possible ways she was the perfect lover for me?

Every morning, as soon as I get out of her bed, she invites me right back in. She has holdings in navigation stocks that continually pump money into her accounts. Then, there's the distance issue, which is crucial for me at this time. In a matter of twenty-five minutes, I can walk from my house to hers, exchange the customary pleasantries, and within minutes she's on my lap for the afternoon.

There is very little that I like better than a pretty woman perched on my knee. In fact, there is nothing in this world that I like better.

Walking along the Lightcliffe Road that morning, I had dreamed her into my future and found it quite satisfying. Miss Walker would make a very nice wife, if only she would find the courage and maddeningly, she has yet to say, 'yes' to me unequivocally. I ball my right fist in anger and then tuck it under my chin to control it.

"Anne, is everything all right?" Of course, she senses something's wrong.

"Just thinking about you," I smile at her and reach across the carriage, taking her hands and pulling her into my lap. The feather on her hat bends against the roof of the carriage and tickles her face.

She blows at it.  
I blow at it.  
She decides to take the hat off.

"Your fancy feather has given me an idea." I paused, gauging her willingness to go along.

"Oh, no! What are you thinking up now?"

My hand reaches under her dress. My eyebrows lifting in my slyly insinuating manner, suggesting our lover's tryst could begin sooner rather than later. Not hearing a 'no' to pulling down her petticoats soon, I hear her breath catch as I slide inside her.

She moans more than a little bouncing in my lap, as the carriage bumps along. Her eyes closed, she slowly scratches me up and down my neck and pushes her lips harder onto mine for a delicious kiss. I slide my left hand inside my pocket, and through my pocket hole, I rub myself in sync with moving inside her. Her muscles are catching and rippling around my finger. She drives me more than a little crazy.

Unhinged, actually.

"You are so beautiful," I sigh between kisses when I hear a slower clopping of the horses' hooves as the team makes its final turn toward the chaumiére.

Miss Walker hears it too.

"How long until?" She asks, worried.

Through gritted teeth, I reply, "Two minutes twenty-seconds,"

Rocking up and down against me, providing all I need to explode, she asks, "We can do it, can't we?"

With only seconds to spare, the sought-after pulsing arc finally connects us, and I follow her over the edge.

The carriage slows to a stop.

We share one final kiss as she slips off my lap, rearranges her petticoats, and takes her seat across from me. I straighten my scarf, and she smoothes her hands over her dress and replaces her feather hat. As I reach for the handle, Miss Walker presses her hand against the back of mine and says, "For once, Anne, just let the footman open the door for you."

I frown.

She asks, "What if you broke his nose? We'd have to go find Dr. Kenny and ..."

"You paint a vivid picture of a ruined afternoon." I lean back in my seat, feeling satisfied. "That was nice just now, wasn't it?"

"Wasn't it just?"

Once alighted, I swing our picnic basket between us. Miss Walker tucks away a lock of hair that's strayed from under her hat. As my hand turns the doorknob, all I can think about doing next is plucking the fancy feather from her hat and teasing her into orgasm with it.

I turn around and call across the garden to her groom, William Bell. "We never went to the accident site today, did we?"

"We've never been there, no ma'am." He nods his understanding of our secret.

"So I want you to drive up to Shibden and get something to eat and have a nice cup of tea. And you and the footman feed and water the horses. John Booth will show where. And, very importantly, you're to tell both Booth and Cordingly that Miss Lister and Miss Walker will be returning to Shibden by foot and to expect us at six."

"But Miss Lister," William points to the ever-darkening sky and predicts, "it might be storming by then."

"If that's the case, and you haven't seen me by six, then, come and find me."

"Yes, Miss Lister." He clucks giddy-up to the horses, and Miss Walker's carriage drives away.

Noting the time as 4 p.m., I close my pocket watch and enter the chaumiére, where Miss Walker is laying out our picnic. "Strangest thing," she says, "once you found that falcon crest, the bruising on your face began to lighten, and even your eye isn't so red anymore."

"Really? Are you sure it's not the aftereffect of our, you know ...in the carriage just now?" Waiting for her answer, I pull off my gloves and stretch my right hand in front of me. Closing my right eye and then my left, I compare their vision. "I count seven fingers instead of five, not sure what to make of that."

"How many were there this morning?"

"Oh," I pop a grape into my mouth, courtesy of Miss Walker's picnic, and nonchalantly answer, "At least nine."

##  # # #

After finishing our smoked chicken sandwiches, we sipped wine, watched the fire, and listened to the rain beat against the windows. I felt as if I could fall dead asleep at any moment; I was so content. Instead, I asked, "I'm curious about the note you left for Miss Parkhill explaining your absence."

"It was a short one." Miss Walker confesses with a grin.

"Yes, so I would imagine. Go on."

"Dear Miss Parkhill, I hope that you have a good book to amuse you because I have gone out and will not be back in time for dinner."

"Very good! Your writing is improving, but I do wonder though how it is that your Aunt can invite Miss Parkhill to come to you for a whole month? What kind of arrangement is that?"

A scowl clouds Miss Walker's face. "In some way, it must be my fault."

"How?"

"Years of not standing up to any of them. They tell me what to do and then snoop around a week later to see if I am following their suggestions."

"Hmm, that wouldn't do for me. You need to tell them to stop."

"Oh, do I?" Miss Walker blurts out, nearly spilling her wine. "And who would they blame for my sudden turnabout?" She points at me. "You!"

I brush her off. "I would make them feel utterly ridiculous if they ever confronted me." I slip out from behind her lying against my shoulder and toss a few logs on the fire. "And not a one has the nerve to do it."

"You would be right, if only you realized the tribe fights as a pack. It's never just one. You'd have to fight them all." For a moment, Miss Walker appears eager to level her familial playing field and launch a scheme to take them on, but she buckles. "It would be so tempting to set you loose on them, but I know I'll never ask."

"Why?"

"Their low opinions of me, maybe? I've come to believe them myself." A nervousness radiates from her as she says, "I don't know exactly. I don't know why."

To bring her back from the edge of sounding desperate, I whisper, "You need to come and live with me at Shibden. Its walls have held off invaders for four hundred years. They can withstand your tribe of relations hurling what? Insults! Complaints? I welcome it. It would be amusing."

"It would make the papers." Miss Walker begins to laugh at the ridiculous picture.

"You know you're not the only one who has a difficult family. You've met Marian, my younger sister? We could unleash her on your medievalist family. She has a pulverizing quality embedded in her personality," I add grimly.

I play out a few scenarios in my head. Every one of them that involves Marian backfires. I backtrack with Miss Walker. "Or I could hire a man to throw a box of rats into each of their kitchens."

"Anne! Tell me you'd never order such a thing!"

Lying is so easy for me. "Of course, not! I'm playing with you. It's called in French an 'expérience de pensée --a thought experiment.

"Meaning what?" Miss Walker appears puzzled, but no longer considers me dangerous or planning cruelties against her family.

I rejoin her on the couch and wrap my arms around her. As we were before, she leans back against me. "Allow me to explain some of the trouble in my own family." I take out my pocket watch and check the time."It's just now five-ten. In ninety minutes, Marian will have me captive at the table. Watch the fights she picks to goad me into paying attention to her."

"She seemed perfectly fine the afternoon I met her."

"Because you are exactly the type of lady she likes, whereas, I am decidedly not."

I take the glass of wine from her hand and kneel by the sofa. "Let's talk about something else, very different." I unclasp her belt and pull it free from her waist. Moving my lips in bursts of kisses up her body, the soft silk of her dress sliding upwards with every move I make. I reach her lips, where timidly at first, her tongue slides next to mine, and her hands grip my shoulders and tighten.

Under her dress, I feel the knot that holds her petticoats, and I pull it free. Finding no objection from her, I slide them over her slippers and drop them onto the floor where they disappear ...to be looked for much later.

One layer left, her drawers, and from experience a simple knot to pull, but I wait, pressing against the fabric that's barely separating us, waiting until her desire for me overtakes her. We kiss over and over. She holds my face in her hands and says she loves me. I toss my vest somewhere on the other side of the couch and think about the words, 'I love you' that she just said, and how they are nice to hear, but I don't easily say them anymore. Not until I've found a woman who will never tie my future happiness to morbidity and play games with me like 'when Charles dies.'

Miss Walker knows nothing of my self-punishing penchant for serialized dramatic torture. ^2~4=\5~_32\7_5f3 =24o4~5_7=3fu.

That is not me anymore. I'm ready for a tremendous life pivot: marriage.

I must have her 'yes.'

In the meantime ...held in my teeth is the string of the last knot, and it slips free. I look into Ann's eyes in this sweet moment we share. There's her aching for me, her loneliness, and something else I've yet to understand. I look lovingly at her. Her fingers play up my neck and across my jawline as she guides me to within inches of where she wants my loving attention.

She asks, "How can I not say yes to you when you love me this way?"

## Shibden -- 6 p.m.

We arrive at Shibden a little bit wetter than either of us would like, but very soon, our damp coats and hats are off, and we're by fire in the sitting room with my aunt. It is no secret to me that when I come home from Miss Walker's, she and Marian titter amongst themselves that I've been off visiting 'my little friend' -- again. Tonight, we'll see how Ann stands up to ladies of Shibden.

To be continued...


	3. The Thawing River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Miss Walker's first dinner at Shibden and the Lister Family's eccentricities abound.
> 
> A second note: I've discovered two "Gentleman Jack" writers I enjoy, Alisterscravat and iwasjustpassing, and I'd like to recommend them to you.

# The Thawing River

# 

##  Part One

During my enrollment in York's Manor School, I had attended evening vespers with the rest of the students but afterward was locked away in the attic. With hours on my hands and a candle stub for light, I'd expanded my ancient Greek studies, and soon, I was riveted.

I had not known that the Moon over ancient Greece could not phase from crescent to orb without women disrobing in song on the hillsides. 

Two words had stuck in my mind: Moonlit orgies.

Why had I not been born a Spartan?

Once released from my imprisonment, I'd entered an aggressive period of my life. I physically fought with other people. I was both angry and frustrated. I desperately wanted to be wanted by pretty females, but often they did not want me in return. There was a game, I soon realized, to be played along the way of lovemaking. 

Within years, I became good at the game.

Then, I mastered it.

But there were costs.

Most of them, I was willing to pay, and some well, they just happened. I'm more accustomed now to the rhythms of life. The melodies and measures of which go both up and down the scale. When in love, the rhythm appears, and quite suddenly, you're there within it. I feel it growing stronger when coming together with Miss Walker. With her, it happens during her third goodish one. 

And I don't know why yet.

With Miss Walker, there's always a hint of her loneliness that shows through, needing to be soothed from its faint tremblings. She's never seen my own chaotic side and never will. No one sees me like that anymore. The last time I had failed to control myself was the last time Mariana had kicked me to the kerb. Where once I had a haunting regret, I now feel free. However, Mariana possesses the low-to-the-ground senses of the snake and will soon write to me, asking, "Freddie, What have you been up to?" She knows I cannot stay celibate for too long. 

Surely, Miss Walker must feel our bonds tightening after so much lovemaking? Maybe that's why she's anxious at first, even though I'm very gentle with her when we begin. And still, sometimes we can be sitting at breakfast, and Ann will tell me how unsure she is of her decision not to have taken Mr. Ainsworth. It astonishes me every time I hear it, and I pinch myself to make sure I'm sitting at her table after a night that even I, who obsessively counts orgasms, had shot past a number I'd memorized at midnight. 

Long past.

Even if I had a friend I could tell, no one could imagine the profoundness of my utter confusion sometimes with Miss Walker.

Remedy or not, and who knows with her anyway, I've brought her to dinner at Shibden. It's paramount to me that she has an enjoyable evening with my family, and that soon, she'll call Shibden home.

Marian is, of course, a wild card, and where is she? I look at my pocket watch and see that it's six twenty and she's nowhere in sight. By five, Marian is usually sitting by the fire with my father and my aunt. My father is oblivious, but if ever I needed my aunt to pull through for me -- tonight is the night. We all need to be polite and kind and keep Miss Walker off the ceiling.

**# # #**

****

In the sitting room, I'm in my usual spot, to the left of the fireplace, and under an oil painting of an ancient Lister. Our profiles match, so people say, and is why I always stand here.

****

Miss Walker is nearby and warming herself in front of the fire. We did get a little damp on our race from the chaumière during the storm, but it was worth it. My attention drifts to my aunt, saying, "The servants are re-arranging the table now, but I do wonder ..."

****

"What?" I ask, knowing full well that Miss Walker's coming for dinner was a sudden surprise.

****

"I know you're busy, with all your coal mines and such. Could that be why you've forgotten?" 

****

Frowning, I answer, "I can't think of what."

****

Her face creases in wrinkles as she replies in a guilty whisper, "It's Mr. Abbott's night..."

****

Abruptly, Marian walks into the sitting room and finishes my aunt's thought, "To come to dinner. Yes, Mr. Abbott's been invited to dinner and typical of you -- you have forgotten, haven't you? Or why else would you be here and bringing Miss Walker?" Triumphant at how caught I am in a trap of my own making, Marian smirks at me.

****

Under my breath, I curse, which is not like me to take the Lord's name in vain. My aunt stares down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap, while I make a split-second decision: I will remain unfazed by my apparent ill-timing. I rejoin, "Is that so? Well, I'd better make sure they've poured enough wine."

****

Miss Walker says to my sister, "It's so nice to see you, Marian." And catching my sleeve before I can leave, she walks out of the sitting room with me. 

****

"Good Lord! Things took a turn," she whispers anxiously, once we're out of earshot."What should we do?" Miss Walker asks.

****

"When Mr. Abbott arrives, to Marian's over-the-top fanfare, we certainly don't want to be anywhere near the front door." I lead Ann into an adjoining room, and my tour begins, "Shibden Hall is the oldest building in Halifax ..."

****

But Miss Walker interrupts me, "What? But that's not true. The Normans built here in eleven-thirty, and the Romans much earlier."

****

Staring her down, I ask, "How could you not know that I meant 'still standing?'" 

****

Lighting her candle from mine, I lead Ann past the estate office and away from the main hall and down a narrow corridor. We must walk single file to enter a large room in the oldest part of the house; its walls hacked by medieval war axes and -- it just so happens -- a place of fond childhood memories for me.

****

"What went on here?" Miss Walker gasps, as she ducks under my arm for warmth and cover. But before I can thrill her with my medieval battle re-enactments, she says, "I need to tell you something."

****

"The floor is yours." I feel my stomach flip. 

****

"Well, you might not like it." Miss Walker scrunches her nose. 

****

Self consciously, I sniff the air, whilst thinking, the occasional rat has been known to crawl in here and die when she blurts out in a rush, "It was Miss Parkhill, after shopping in Halifax on Tuesday, when Mr. Abbott's name came up."

****

"Really? She specifically mentioned, Mr. Abbott? Why? What for?"

****

Miss Walker stares up at the high ceiling, and my gaze follows as an honest-to-God bat flies over our heads. "Whaaa..." she cries.

****

I dismiss it, but of course, there would be bats where I live. "I've never seen anything like that before."

****

Miss Walker looks sideways at me and with hesitance, continues, "Well, it's Halifax gossip, and I know how much you dislike it."

****

"Actually, you're wrong. Gossip is very valuable to a landowner. You'd be wise to pay attention to it." I brush away dust and cobwebs from two chairs and motion for her to sit. I rest my elbow on an even dustier thirty-foot long table, also hacked and scarred by war axes.

****

More bats fly overhead. 

****

In another part of the house that feels centuries away, the doorbell sounds Mr. Abbott's arrival. 

****

I sense the real rat has entered.

****

Miss Walker's story continues. "She, Miss Parkhill, you understand, was having tea at Holdsworth House and, you know, the tribe's constantly worried about, 'treasure hunters,' when it comes to me?"

****

"Treasure hunters. Yes. A big concern, I'm sure, but if true, why so eager to marry you off to Mr. Ainsworth? Mrs. Priestley flat out told me one day, when we saw each other walking along the Lightcliffe Road, that your friend, Mrs. Ainsworth, did have a lot of money, and he probably had married her for it. Because why else would he?"

****

"What do you mean? She was a perfectly nice lady!" Miss Walker objects.

****

"I'm sure your friend had a lovely disposition and bore up well considering her disfigurement."

****

"From the smallpox she had as a child. Did Mrs. Priestley tell you that?" Ann asks quite exasperated before turning defensive, "And, yes, Mrs. Ainsworth was very self-conscious about her pockmarks and hid them, well, at least tried to, by covering them with a dark rouge."

****

"Like a clown's face?" I let slip.

****

"Anne," she says, in a one-word warning.

****

"Never mind, what did Miss Parkhill overhear about treasure hunters in Halifax?"

****

"Well, she was worried they were after me."

****

I exhale a ragged sigh to express the grief Miss Parkhill has caused me. "But now you're not so sure it was about you, is that it?"

****

"Dr. Kenny is fond of me, too fond, really, but he isn't fond of you, is he?"

****

"I pay him on time," I snap. "Why wouldn't he be? Anyway, how is Dr. Kenny involved?"

****

Miss Walker deflects to a more personal assessment and says, "Perhaps, you don't fully realize how you come across to people."

****

I brace myself. I've heard this kind of speculation about me before, reminding me of Mariana just before launching a volley of personal disparagements. 

****

Above us, the circling bats make the occasional high-pitched squeak. 

****

I take Miss Walker's hands in mine and look directly into her eyes, with the vain hope that she won't look up anymore and that whatever bad news she's heard about me from Miss Parkhill -- whilst at tea at the Holdsworth House in Halifax -- won't be something I can't talk myself out of in the next five minutes. I squeeze Miss Walker's hands in mine and gently rub her wrist. "Go on, please?" 

****

"Miss Parkhill overheard a woman she didn't recognize say, 'After the brother had died, there wasn't anyone else?' And another lady had answered, 'But my point is, why no husband?'"

****

I interrupt Ann, "Did Miss Parkhill name any at tea?"

****

"Oh, do wait because next, Mrs. Stansfield Rawson, my cousin's wife, had added, 'Why would Mr. Abbott think the Lister's have any money? Dr. Kenny says the house is falling in around them.'"

****

"Wh, what!" I disturb four hundred years of dust when I smack my hand down on the table. Miss Walker, shaken by my anger, rises to leave. "No, no, no," I say, coaxing her back to her chair, where she looks as if she might cry. 

****

"Is your sister in danger?" She asks.

****

Lightly, I drum my fingers on the table, while thinking five, six, seven moves ahead, "Not sure, but Mr. Abbott certainly is."

****

Sniffling, she continues, "By then, Miss Parkhill had realized that none of this was about me when someone had said, 'The father plays poorly at Pharo.'"

****

"And that's why Uncle James skipped him and settled on me."

****

"And he should have, Anne. Everything about Shibden should be yours -- the bats, the battle-ax marks, the clocks in every room ticking loudly."

****

I feel a sudden headache coming on. The shabbiness of Shibden is glaring in her description. "I'll do something about the bats, first thing."

****

"If you'd like, but our room wouldn't be in here, would it?" She looks around anxiously.

****

"What? No! Certainly not." I cradle her face with both hands, reassuring her. "And don't worry, Ann, about what you've told me." I lean in, and we kiss, and very soon, she's on my lap, her arms around my neck, a smile growing on her lips between kisses. I whisper in her ear, "I'm happy tonight. Are you happy tonight, Miss Walker?"

****

"We did have a very nice _long_ afternoon together."

****

We kiss again and as it begins to deepen Miss Walker slips away from my lips and asks, "I've wondered, ever since Mr. Priestley mentioned it -- that you keep a diary, how much about 'us' do you write in it?"

****

"Interesting question."

****

"What would you like better? If I wrote to the last exquisite detail about our lovemaking? Or if I didn't write about you at all?"

****

"I only get those two choices? You're not playing fair!"

****

"Alright then, what would you write about me?"

****

Miss Walker answers hesitantly, "You're not easily described, but I do know your face well enough to sketch you." Caressing my cheek, she adds, "And your nose that sometimes gets in the way when we're kissing."

****

Miss Walker tucks her chin. Her signal for my kiss, which happens fast and we kiss like this for many minutes, until finally slowing and when our lips become softer, she lifts hers from mine and says, "I did believe, at first, that you hadn't done this before, but I suspect you have."

****

"You're right, this isn't my first time."

****

"I knew it!" Miss Walker says, delighted she guessed right.

****

"And," I add quickly, leaving her no time to probe for details, "I'd wanted our dinner tonight to be you and me with my family, and now with this Mr. Abbott interference, it's become something else, entirely."

****

Miss Walker says, very sweetly to convince me, "I think that at the end of the night if you didn't make any trouble with Mr. Abbott, you'd feel a lot better about yourself, than if you did."

****

I smile and answer, "You said that very convincingly, in case it goes the other way."

****

"Poor Marian," Miss Walker laments.

****

"Yes, poor Marian," I agree while lifting Miss Walker up by her hand. "If this storm doesn't let up, you should spend the night here -- at Shibden with me and see where we would live."

****

****

****

##  Part Two

****

****

Dinner begins at 7 o'clock.

****

****

The servants have added an extra leaf to the table, making it nearly two feet longer, necessary I see, because Mr. Abbott is slightly pudgy. 

****

Marian, believing she's annoying me, seats Mr. Abbott directly across from me. I could not have orchestrated our dinner seating better. I consider proposing a toast when the footman interrupts carrying a note.

****

"For Mr. Abbott, ma'am," the footman says.

****

"For me?" Mr. Abbott twists in his seat and looks completely surprised, before catching himself and squaring his shoulders, as if urgent messages followed him everywhere.

****

Holding the note in his hands, he studies its wax seal before flipping the envelope over to squint at the handwriting. I lower my wine glass onto the table with a decisive clink to get his attention. He jumps a little. I say, "If you require privacy, Mr. Abbott, I'll allow you my office."

****

"Oh! Gracious no, Miss Lister," he says, quickly tucking the unopened note inside his jacket pocket.

****

"Who even knows you're here?" Marian asks, before demurring to more appropriate behaviour, which is to allow her guest his privacy. 

****

Miss Walker perks up and says, "I always want to know what's in a note sent to me. I never let them lie unopened. What if your mother is ill or there's been a fire with the rugs? I would want to know about that, wouldn't you?" She directs her final question to Marian, who's squirming in her seat.

****

An uncomfortable silence settles over the table because Mr. Abbott will not break the seal. Marian adds smiling to not smiling, while at the other end of the table, my aunt's blue eyes widen as she stares beseechingly, at me to 'say something.'

****

So I do. "Marian, why don't you tell Mr. Abbott about the shooting here and what and when?"

****

My aunt sighs with relief but soon settles her worried gaze back on me with skepticism of my resumption. No one would ever make Mr. Abbott for a sportsman and a hunter --- of anything. Meanwhile, Marian lists the estate's available game: Pheasants, dove, quail, and rabbits, by arrows, or pellets, or traps. 

****

Once fully recited to him, Mr. Abbott responds to my shooting offer, as if lecturing a barbarian, explaining to me his domestications and his home-cooked evening meals taken with his mother and his sister. 

****

"So, definitely not how we do it here, dragging in dinner from the fields still bloody."

****

My aunt looks disgusted. "Do you really have to?"

****

"Do you live with your mother?" I blink rapidly as I ask, Mr. Abbott.

****

"I do, and I see Captain Lister here at table."

****

Everyone turns to see my father chewing away at his dinner. "I think we can all see that Captain Lister is present and accounted for, can't we?" I answer.

****

When my father looks up and says to my aunt, "Have you told her yet?"

****

My aunt rolls her eyes over to me and says, "No, Jeremy, I haven't spoken to Anne about it, and now is not the time."

****

"About what?" I ask, "What's happened?"

****

My father thunders, although probably not meaning to, "Next time, take the horse away from the windows before shooting it."

****

Miss Walker cries, waveringly, "Dear Lord, what have you done?"

****

"Nothing!" I pat her arm. "Don't listen to him. I've told you my father's a bit odd."

****

"Poor Percy," Marian says sadly, before remembering she's fighting with me. "And now, she's sinking coal pits that will put us all in the 'poor house!'"

****

Mr. Abbott strokes his chubby chin and listens. 

****

I've owned him as either a Rawson spy or a true to life so-called treasure hunter sniffing around Marian, who hasn't a shilling to her name. Whichever way it is, I'm willing to play along.

****

For now.

****

I spark back at her and say, "Marian, you know that not to be true. I've shown both you and father the figures, so I suggest you correct the record right now, in front of Mr. Abbott."

****

Marian tosses her head back defiant as a filly. "And tell him what, exactly? That you know, ow, ow, ow what you're doing?"

****

"Pricing, hurrying, and monopolizing which, of course, you'd know nothing about, so allow me to explain." I lean back in my Jacobean dining chair and begin. "Shibden's coal. My coal will get a far higher price up the river, where there are no collieries and where I intend to monopolize the market. 

****

"What you should next appreciate, Marian, is that all Halifax shipping traffic must first pass through a series of navigational locks and pay a fee. And these locks are controlled by one family. 'What family?' You might ask? Miss Walker’s family!"

****

Mr. Abbott's eyebrows sail up his forehead. My aunt looks very grieved that I'm discussing money --in any form --in front of company. Marion's hatred of me is palpable, and Miss Walker opines that she'll happily lower my freightage rate since I knew precisely what to do when one of her tenants had set fire to her fields. 

****

Miss Walker says, "And in no time, Anne was over the hill and dealing with him."

****

"Oh my goodness," Mr. Abbott wheezes. "It must be dangerous for a lady confronting the countryfolk."

****

"Oh, really? Why?"

****

Marian slants her eyes at me, inveigling myself once more between her and Mr. Abbott. "Mr. Abbott, pay no attention to my sister, who thinks she's always riding a high horse when she isn't."

****

"That's not how I'd describe her ambition," Miss Walker says to Marion very sweetly, very genuinely. "I hear about Anne's quarries and mines, what are your interests, Marian?"

****

Even my father, who claims he can't hear, but I'm positive that he can, lifts his eyebrows in anticipation of Marian's description of herself, as industrious and helpful. 

****

Poor Marian, I send her a lifeline. "Quite simply, the estate couldn't run without her. My sister oversees the people who oversee the chickens and their eggs and, what else is out there? Oh, our dairy cow -- whose name is? Well, I've forgotten."

****

****

"Lily, her name is Lily," Marian answers flatly.

****

"You've only the one?" Miss Walker asks.

****

I'm slightly taken aback, "Yes, just the one, Lily, apparently, and how many do you have?"

****

Miss Walker throws her hands up the air as if she could not count so high. "I don't know. I've never counted them, but there's a whole field of them near my house. Lightcliffe has its own dairy. You know."

****

"Of course, I know that."

****

"May we discuss something other than cows?" My aunt pleads.

****

Mr. Abbot clears his throat and says, "I hear that you travel quite a bit, Miss Lister."

****

"I've been beyond Miss Walker's cow pastures if that's what you mean."

****

Out of the blue, my father says, "What's this, I hear about you building a bridge?"

****

"Who told you?" I glare at him, very irritated. "It was to stay a surprise for all of you." 

****

Miss Walker muses, "They are rather large. Bridges. Aren't they? To be kept secret." 

****

I say proudly to my aunt, "I'd thought you might like the honour of breaking a bottle of champagne over its main arch." 

****

"Like christening a ship? It'd be my first time." My aunt looks delighted. 

****

"I do have a name in mind because I saw a bridge just like it in Switzerland three years ago, but I'm open to suggestions. (Which will never happen because I've already named the bridge and ordered its signage.)

****

"Who's your bridge engineer, Miss Lister?" Mr. Abbott asks.

****

"Initially, I draw up all the plans myself."

****

He shakes his head. "You couldn't possibly. Where would you have learned, Miss Lister?"

****

Miss Walker gives Mr. Abbott a hint. "It's a suspension bridge she's designed if that helps."

****

Mr. Abbott guffaws, as if it's all in my imagination that suspension bridges have schools that would ever allow me to attend them. 

****

"I'm not sure what you're asking, Mr. Abbott. How I know trigonometry and can calculate the precise angles needed for a bridge to stay up?"

****

Marian bites into my apparent bragging. "As a financial expert, Mr. Abbott is very good with figures."

****

I make no pretense to hide how stupid she is to me. "The solution of torque, Marian, will never be found at the end of a column of banking numbers."

****

Mr. Abbott, leaning into the table, announces that he's not actually the man behind the counter adding up the money, but more of a salesman, and that his rug business keeps him very busy.

****

My hands folded in front of me, I blink a few times at Mr. Abbott. "Yes, it's been mentioned, something in wool."

****

Marian snaps back, "Mr. Abbott employs hundreds of dutiful workers and family men in his business, which is crucial to Halifax." 

****

"I'm slowly putting it together. Of course, his rug business is the origin of your Reform Bill nonsense!”

****

"No! It's not!"

****

“In the real world, Marian, do you actually believe I'd vote to give uneducated men power over me when I've trouble enough with the educated ones? Or haven't you noticed?" 

****

"It's just like you to blame everyone but yourself when your own problems are so obvious."

****

"No, no, no, Marian, I won't have it," my aunt says.

****

"And what do you think, Mr. Abbott? Should women be denied the vote?"

****

"I'd think, Miss Lister, that they'd vote the way their husbands do, so what would be the point?"

****

My aunt holds her breath, while Miss Walker whispers under hers, "Please don't." 

****

"Hmm, are you so sure?" I spear a carrot on my plate and chew it up.

****

Then Mr. Abbott says, "You spoke earlier, Miss Lister, about The Walker Family's monopoly over the shipping lanes."

****

"I do recall."

****

"And your competition in the coal business is also my competitor in banking and finance. I'm guessing you've talked to the Rawson Brothers?"

****

"They are one of the companies on my list, so yes, I've spoken to the Rawson Brothers."

****

"Christopher Rawson has learned the patience to wait before he viciously moves to finally tie-off against someone. Has anybody told you to be wary of him?"

****

"You seem to know a lot about it, Mr. Abbott. Has it happened to you?"

****

"Oh, goodness, yes, Miss Lister, he tried, but with the Merchants Guild behind me the odds changed in my favor." 

****

"Really?"

****

"I don't know anyone who's taken him on alone."

****

"As I've said, my discussions are with many companies, not just the Rawsons."

****

"Even so, when shipping your coal, you'll not be wanting to use any docks controlled by Christopher Rawson's thugs, or you'll soon find out how many thieves ..." 

****

I interrupt Mr. Abbott. "I hadn't known he was also down at the docks."

****

"He's everywhere, Miss Lister."

****

"Hmm."

****

"Safer to ship out from the Merchants Guild's docks and under its protection, that is, if Miss Walker's family would renegotiate the guild's freight lease."

I signal a slowdown to stop motion. "Ah-ha! And that's a negotiation for another time entirely You can't see it, Mr. Abbott, but my aunt's burning a hole in me to change the subject."

As the dinner dishes are being cleared away and the table made ready for dessert and coffee, Miss Walker and I say goodnight to my family and to Mr. Abbott. As we make our way up to my rooms, I consider how every warning he gave about Christopher Rawson's low-handedness was correct.

Still, I wonder, could Mr. Abbott be spying for Rawson? Yes. That's a high possibility, and using Marion as a soft spot for burrowing into Shibden's goings-on would put more eyes on me. The certainty will be If Mr. Abbott dutifully reports my fabricated story of monopolizing coal markets to Rawson, whose actions toward me will be swift, but I will be ready.

I've only one decision to uphold here at home, versus the dozens in the high-stakes world of mining. The nouveau riche carpet maker, Mr. Abbott, will never marry my sister. 

Walking up the flight of stairs to my rooms with Miss Walker, where we'll have coffee, and she'll spend the night, I'm feeling more hopeful and more settled than I can remember in a long, long time.

________________more soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three kind readers, Tjorven (writer on here) and my Tumblr pals extraordinaire, LovingAnneLister and AnneListers-right-middle-finger, gave me the finger and valuable story notes and I thank them.
> 
> Two stories precede this one:
> 
> 1\. "Anne versus The Medievalists" https://archiveofourown.org/works/19946122
> 
> 2\. "Might I Tell the Truth?" https://archiveofourown.org/works/21110342
> 
> Blackbird

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for stopping by and reading. The next chapter is, "Might I Tell the Truth?" 
> 
> Please enjoy,  
> Blackbird


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